


The Real

by Ladybarabee



Category: Fantasy - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Apocalyptic, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Faeries - Freeform, Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Monsters, Mythology - Freeform, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Survival, Teen Romance, Urban Fantasy, cosmic horror, urban horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybarabee/pseuds/Ladybarabee
Summary: It started in Northern Canada: Rumours. Quiet reports. None by television, social media, or newspaper; all by mouth.  Entire towns blacked out, entities snatching children, upturning cars, devouring humans. Power has stopped running, cars no longer start, cellphones all remain dead.Nobody knows why.The further it goes, the more reports that come in. The more reports that come, the less it seems real.In a small down on the east coast of Canada, a group of people are about to find out just how real this phenomenon is. How do you survive something that isn't even supposed to exist?





	1. Day 0, 2145hrs

' _Project test number seven-four-two A.'_

A voice projected through the enclosed room from speakers that were wired into a workstation beyond a thick, tempered glass.

_'Starting configurations.'_

_'Configurations complete. Output levels at twenty percent.'_

Another pause.

_'Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-six. Twenty-nine...'_

A group of four individuals inside of the lab were working over a beam of light that was coming from a machine that easily would have dwarfed any military armored vehicle. One of them stood to one side; taller than the rest, with hair that was tied up in a knot on their head. She was the one who worked at the panel, seemingly manipulating the flow of energy, and the rate of which it went up.

' _Energy levels steady at twenty-nine percent, Doctor.'_

The bright light from the beam that was holding steady across the room kept the attention of the uniformed men behind the glass. Scientists moved inside the room, covered head to toe in protective gear as they worked. The white of their suits was almost blinding. The room seemed to get even brighter.

' _Increasing energy levels by two percent.'_

The voice was distinctly female. Calm. Foreign. Even with the degradation of sound over a set of speakers, it was easy to tell that she had a lot of class.

_'Three percent.'_

The men in the room watched with interest as the light wavered, grew brighter, and then became stronger than before, growing larger as the energy was increased. The waver vanished, resulting in a nearly-solid beam of pure energy.

"When did they get results before?"

"Thirty-three percent."

A man in a white lab coat with a clipboard was watching lit panels. "But the first four times we did it, we increased the energy too quickly, and the results were... Well. You did  _read_  the file, didn't you, sir?" He didn't look up from his reading to acknowledge the nod that the other man gave him.

' _Doctor. We're getting the same readings as before.'_

The man nodded his head. "I see that. Are you getting bio-mass readings?"

' _We're at thirty-two percent and holding, Doctor. No bio-mass.'_ The woman's voice was calm, but sounded determined.  _'I'm raising input.'_

The white noise that came from the audio was hard to miss when she went silent.

"Doctor, keep it under thirty-five percent." The man spoke into a nearby mic, and lifted his finger.

"Under thirty-five?" One of the uniformed men wondered. He turned his attention away from the window, towards the doctor in front of his station. "Why's that?"

"We tried going further. Pass something through from our side, rather than the little things we were getting from theirs. But every time we went over thirty-five, it destabilized. I had to shut it down." The man keyed in a configuration.

Nothing happened. The beam didn't change. The readings only barely rose.

' _Thirty-three percent, and I'm still getting negative on biomass.'_

Another person broke into the conversation. The click of the radio heralded his interruption. He was masculine. A baritone with just a hint of twang to his voice.

' _I'm gettin' nothin', either.'_

"Don't tell me that this operation is a bust already, Keckburry." A grouchy man, short, but broad at the shoulders, spoke up. He didn't look away from the experiment on the floor. "You told me that you've consistently gotten debris from the other side of this field every time you've run this experiment."

"I'm not seeing anything here but a glorified laser light show."

"We have gotten debris." Doctor Keckburry uttered impatiently. "But that doesn't mean that it's going to happen 100% of the time. This is an unknown field, in case you've forgotten, sir." He tapped the intercom button. "Doctor, increase your output."

' _We're at thirty-three percent.'_  The woman protested, turning her head from the floor of the lab, to look up at the windowed viewing area. She was visibly bothered by the suggestion to keep pushing.  _'I'll up another percentage, but thirty-five is..'_

"I know what thirty-five is. Try for thirty-four percent. If nothing happens, we'll shut down, and reconfigure."

There was hesitation, both in the woman's posture, and in the way she moved. She was obviously uncomfortable, but also unable to disobey.

_'Thirty-four percent, Doctor.'_

' _I'm getting biomass!'_  A fresh voice spoke up.

' _Confirmed.'_  The female doctor on the floor sounded suddenly excited.  _'Readings are coming in now, Doctor. I'm getting biomass as well. I-..'_

_'Doctor. Bio-mass readings at...'_  There was a crackle in the intercom, and the doctor double checked his readings.

"Shut it down!" he barked over the intercom.

' _Output levels are increasing! Thirty-five percent! Thirty-nine! Fifty!_ Shut it off! _'_

" _Abigail_ _!_ " The doctor heard a sound that rattled the speakers of the room. It was deafening, rumbling so lowly that each person in the vicinity could feel their jaws ache in reverberation.

The men in the room all took steps back as the light became so bright, so suddenly, that it flash-singed the pane of glass from the outside. The uniformed men were all panicked. The light that had initially been steady increased in power, and whined so loudly that it cracked the foot-thick glass that had been protecting the room.

"What's going on, Doctor?" The stout man demanded.

"Where are the...?"

"What the hell is that?"

The doctor looked down at his video feed, and stared in horror as he realized that whatever was coming through the portal that they'd opened had begun feeding off the increase of energy from the beam. He felt his fingers flying over codes and tried to kill the power. Instantly, the entire building shut down.

What should have been a moment of relief became a moment of bald terror.

The beam did not cease.

A bang blew open the portal, and the light went from bright to dark. It was still running, but the power had changed.

"What the hell is going on?"

"The feed has reversed." The doctor stood, looking out the cracked, sooty window. He put his hand on it. "We have no c.."

His hand went through the window. It stopped halfway up his forearm, and froze there. The sensation of tempered glass melding together with the molecules of his flesh and bone made the doctor cry out in pain so excruciating that he couldn't muster the sense to comprehend what had just happened. Glass warped around the doctor as the uniformed men tried to escape the room.

It was useless. As soon as the power had been cut, everything in the facility had been locked down. They were just as trapped as the doctor, who wailed, and gasped for air as glass devoured him, encased him, and slowly became one with his entire body. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't speak; but he was still alive.

Doctor Donovan Keckburry was thinking ten million thoughts in a second, and without so much as being able to scream to help relieve his pain, he realized that he was going mad.

The biomass had been at over four million kilograms- more than enough to utterly destroy the planet. He wished he'd seen it sooner. Been more patient. Been down on the floor with his wife, who had been heading the physical aspect of the experiment. He wished he'd had the sense to know better than to do this.

Watching as each of the men in the room became one with the floors, the walls, the desks and chairs, Keckburry tried to thrash out of his prison. The more he struggled, the more it hurt. The more it hurt, the less he could move.

He wished so many things at once. He wished he'd just  _known._

But now, trapped as a meld of both glass, and dying flesh, he knew;  _this was the end_. This was the end of everything.

He couldn't even weep for it. 

 


	2. Day 08, 0847hrs

The Library was quiet. Sitting at a long desk, Katina Ashton had her face buried in a thin, paperback book. She turned the page, concentrating on the words in front of her, rather than what was going on around her. She pretended not have noticed the appearance of the tall boy that had come up beside her, but the smell got to her first.

Making a face, the teen turned the page, and tried not to look up. She was busy, after all.

"Damn. Don't you ever get outside? You look like hell; all pasty and bookworm-y." His arms were folded. And, mother of God, he was ripe. It was too early for gym, and Katina knew for a fact that he didn't live far enough away to warrant stinking like that so early in the morning.

"And you smell like a pig." She replied. "Worse than a pig."

Pulling out the chair next to Katina, Glenn turned it around, sitting in it backwards. He leaned over it, crossing his arms. He was still sweaty from an early morning practice at the hockey rink. There was no doubt in his mind that Katina was probably right. He had been hanging around a bunch of other guys that morning, though, and all of them had stank.

It wasn't that he didn't notice, but rather that he'd learned to tune it out after so long.

"Practice ran a little long." Glenn gave a noncommittal shrug. He could understand why she was disgusted, but at the moment, he didn't care. "So, no time to hit the showers."

"I pity Ms. Dean." Katina glanced up from her book. "You and Sean both? That classroom's gonna be unbearable." Closing the book, but leaving her finger in between the pages to keep her place, she leaned back in her own seat.

Glenn rubbed Katina's long hair with a dirty hand. It made the young woman snarl something under her breath in disgust. Glenn found the muttering surprisingly endearing, even if he knew that her Spanish was probably something less than polite.

"Don't worry, Kat. By the time class is over, you won't even notice."

He sat next to Katina in class, so she definitely believed him. She was going to need a series of showers by the time she got home.

The second time Glenn went to rub her hair, Katina pulled away from his sweaty palm. "Ugh. Don't!" She protested. "So, you're left wing, right?"

"Yeah. You remembered this time."

"Sometimes I remember things. Don't tell anyone."

Glenn rolled his eyes. "What're you reading today?"

"Researching the Green Children of Woolpit." Katina said. It was funny that she often called the topics on her reading lists 'research'. Glenn knew that Katina must have been aware it was all fiction. He didn't correct her.

"If you had time to come and bother me about reading, why didn't you take a shower and save the rest of us from your nasty stench?"

Glenn looked down at the book in Katina's petite hands. Instead of recognizing the insult, he prodded about the book. If he told her that he did it because he was lazy, she'd probably reach down to take off her shoe and beat him with it.

Was that a Latina thing? Must have been..

"Never heard of them. Were they actually green?"

"Supposedly. The boy didn't live very long, though. Doesn't matter what version of the story you read."

"No?" Glenn took everything she said about the story at face value, so he couldn't muster much more than a single word response. He didn't know any more about the tale than he did about most of the other topics that she seemed to favour.

"There was another report similar to this one from Banjos, Spain," Katina was obviously intrigued by the topic. She paused, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "The girl learned the local language pretty quickly, but the boy died. She told the villagers that she came from a place where there was no sunshine, and all the people were green."

"Really?" Glenn couldn't help but feel interested as well. It likely had something to do with Katina's enthusiasm that propelled his curiosity.

Before Katina could continue, the bell for the next class rang echoed through the halls of the school. She double checked her page number, shut the book and placed it on top of the small stack of class-work that she had kept with her.

"You should have taken a shower. Seriously, Glenn. You reek." She looked up at him as they walked down the hall. Glenn only barely heard her as he flagged down a fellow hockey team-mate.

He paused to chat. Katina did not.

She smiled and waved to a couple of girls that she recognised from another class. It was totally natural for the two of them to split up like that in the halls. Peer groups had a tendency to do that, even to close friends.

Sliding into his seat just in time for the second bell, Glenn reclined, stretching back just enough to crack his back. Catching a whiff of his own odour, he made a face and dropped his arms. If anyone had seen his face, they would have seen the faintest streak of embarrassed red rise over his cheeks.

Katina had been right about needing a shower. But with Sean on the other side of him and the bespectacled girl sitting behind him, he could at least enjoy the fact that he wasn't going to have to put up with it on his own!

Besides, they had P.E. in second period, he'd be able to grab a shower right after. As long as the coach didn't catch him stinking like a bad fish-shack, he'd be fine.

"Lotta people skipping class today." He commented under his breath. There were four empty seats, in addition to the two that had been empty the day before.

Advanced English wasn't Glenns' favourite class, but there were a few saving graces. First and foremost, Ms. Dean was extraordinarily attractive. With her large breasts and her heart shaped rear, the locker room was often full of jokes about the things she might be wearing under her usual, modest clothing. Very few of the guys that Glenn knew could manage to admit with a straight face that they didn't have a crush on her. He might have said he had a crush on her once. He couldn't remember; directly afterwards, Katina had hit him in the head with her hand.

Papers were being passed back in a stack from the front of the row. Glancing down, he realised that they were the tests from the week before. His score wasn't awful, he figured. A 'B' for spending an entire class fantasizing about his teacher wasn't too bad.

He took a sneak peek at Katina's score and rolled his eyes skyward. Another 'A'.

"Hey bookworm," he hissed over his shoulder. "Don't you ever get bad grades?"

"Math," Katina answered pointedly. She knew he was kidding, but it was a little bit annoying that he seemed to think she just managed to pull these grades out of her ass. "Idiot."

"Something you need to share, Glenn?" Ms. Dean glanced up from her desk.

"No."

Katina snorted, but didn't say anything.

For however much Glenn enjoyed watching Ms. Dean move across the room, admiring her body more than her very neat handwriting on the whiteboard, he had to admit that forty-five minutes of it was a little too much. It was a wonder he managed to learn anything at all, really. English bored him to death, and a sexy teacher fantasy couldn't do anything to change that.

He was grateful when the bell rang to usher students off to another subject. All but leaping out of his chair like a number of other students, he stretched the kink from his shoulders.

Katina hadn't yet moved from her seat, opting instead to let other students rush past. She was never in much of a hurry, watching as others moved along before her. Actually, once Glenn gave it a little thought, he would realise that she had been like that ever since they first met.

"You should think about taking a gym class, Kat." Glenn didn't bother putting his notes into the binder he used for English. He crammed them into his backpack with the same finesse that he did with all of his other classroom supplies: none whatsoever. A pen fell on the floor and rolled off. Glenn used the tip of his shoe to stop it, rolling it back towards his body before reaching down for it.

"I'm in track. That's not good enough for you?" Katina folded her notes neatly and placed them between the pages of her Advanced English book. She smiled despite the teasing, and adjusted her stack of books.

"I can't figure out how you can carry all those books with those little girly arms."

Katina groaned and rolled her eyes. She tipped her head back, letting her glasses re-adjust on their own before she finally got up out of her chair and picked up her books.

Glenn shouldered his backpack. "How does that work for you chicks, anyway?"

"What's that?"

"Well," Glenn pointed at Katina's chest. "With all that boobage in your way, track can't be easy."

Katina looked down at her breasts without thinking. She could hear Glenn snickering.

"Oh, right," She rolled her eyes at him. "Don't you know? It's magic."

Glenn couldn't help but let out a guffaw at the idea, and shook his head. Unlike some of the other girls he knew in school, at least Katina had a sense of humour about his bad jokes. He gave a short wave to the girl before heading off to gym.

"Glenn?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Glenn paused to wait for Katina to catch up to him.

"Do the world a favor. Take two showers after gym." She smiled sweetly, pushing her glasses up again. "See you in ABT."

Glenn shook his head. Sean slapped him on the back, joking about his stench, even though the taller boy probably stunk worse than Glenn did.

"How's it feel, getting smacked down by the class nerd?" Sean joked. He winked at a blonde girl who waved in his general direction, before nudging Glenn.

"About the same as it feels being so close to your smelly ass," Glenn retorted, pushing his friend away. "Man, she's my friend. I'm pretty sure the friend zone is a no shooting one."

"Neutral zone, man." Sean corrected Glenn casually. "And whatever helps you sleep at night. But that girl is definitely shooting your ass down." He was making hand gestures to illustrate his point, adding an exploding sound before they stopped midway through the hall to listen to something going on nearby.

"--He called my mother, practically in tears. I mean, the man never cries," A tall red-head was talking to a couple of friends. The girl was shaking, and maybe a little less loud than she usually was, but Glenn knew her from the cheerleading squad. Tanya, he thought, though he couldn't remember her last name.

"Wonder what that's all about?" Sean interrupted Glenn's staring.

"Shut up." Glenn muttered halfheartedly. He was trying to listen in.

Just on the other side of the redheaded girl, was Katina. She looked up at Tanya, reaching out to touch her peer on the arm.

"Why was he crying?"

Tanya looked down at Katina. She rubbed at her neck, looking completely exhausted for the moment that she looked away again.

"He was freaking out about some woman in a giant flying log... Aliens..." Tanya looked back at one of her other friends. "He honest to God thinks that my cousins were abducted. Mom told him to call the cops, but he just kept screaming into the phone."

Katina reached in to hold onto her friend's hand. Sure, they only shared one class together, and they were definitely not in the same social circle otherwise. Sometimes people needed reassurance. Even if it was as small as a squeeze of the hand.

The other girls moved in to give their condolences over the matter. It was hard to do much else. One of them wondered if Tanya's mother couldn't call the police on behalf of her uncle. One of the other ones said it didn't matter. Cops wouldn't take someone like that seriously if they were screaming about aliens.

Glenn winced. He took a few steps away from the scene, unaware that Katina had spotted he and his friend listening in on the conversation.

"People are crazy." Sean was surprisingly deadpan about what they had overheard. Despite the fact that he had only been joking and playing around seconds beforehand, it seemed that the wind had left his sails.

"Aliens..." Sean muttered.

"Yeah."


	3. Day 08, 1315hrs

Glenn could think of better ways to spend his free period than sitting in a library, but his Tuesday off-blocks lacked any of his regular group. He could have gone to the gym, if he thought he could put up with the middle schoolers that would undoubtedly be using it. Besides, he had worked hard in the weight room that morning. The option to hang out in the cafeteria until lunch was there, but it wouldn't cure the lack of companionship.

Going to the library meant that Katina was sure to be there. She might not have been much company when she was reading, but at least she could hold part of a conversation while she worked. He could work on his English assignment.

To his surprise, the dark haired girl wasn't anywhere to be found in her usual seat in the back of the library. Her backpack was hanging off the back of a chair, but she was nowhere in sight. Putting down his backpack, he wandered the aisles in search of her.

Katina was seated on the floor between two aisles, with books stacked on one side of her. She was oblivious to her surroundings from what he could tell, as she turned the page of the book she was concentrating on.

"You know, I have a hard enough time having to look down to find you without you sitting down on the floor, shorty."

When she didn't respond, Glenn wondered what he'd said that was wrong. If nothing else, Katina always had a witty comeback for his stupid jokes. Mentally backtracking, he tilted his head. It was normal for the girl to be absorbed in a book, but not so much so that she didn't take note of his presence.

Time to try harder.

Clearing his throat, he leaned against the bookshelves in the most obvious manner.

"So, baby. How you doin'?"

Nothing. Glenn made a face, crouching next to Katina.

"Hey."

Katina nodded at him, but didn't look up from her book, causing Glenn to lean in a little closer to see what she was reading.

"What'cha lookin' at? More fairy-tales? Don't you ever get tired of those things?"

Katina closed the book with an annoyed snap. Turning her attention to Glenn, she tried to look less annoyed than her body language gave hint to.

"Did you hear Tanya in the hallway earlier?" she asked. When Glenn gave her a tellingly blank stare, she continued. "She was talking about how her Uncle had called in a panic last night. He said that he had taken his sons camping out in New Brunswick over the weekend and they had seen a walking house, a lady in a tree trunk who was flying through the air while swinging a broom around, and three men on horses." She put the book in her hands on top of the pile beside her.

Glenn shook his head. "Sounds like he was drinking. Or smoking weed. Or both."

Katina licked her lips. "Maybe," She muttered. "But it's weird, because she said that he had been more upset by the fact that his truck, his cellphone, the flashlights and his emergency batteries had all stopped working. I guess they spent two days trekking back to civilization."

"Yeah, that's pretty weird," Glenn agreed. "But what's that got to do with the book?"

"Well," Katina paused, thinking about what she wanted to say. "I thought the description sounded familiar, that's all."

"Familiar how?" Glenn leaned back against the bookcases behind him again.

"Baba Yaga." Katina said plainly. She said the name as though it were general knowledge.

"Who-what, now?" Glenn had to remind her sometimes that he didn't have an interest in the same sort of weird books she did. Baba Yaga sounded like that eggplant stuff his mother liked to eat on sandwiches.

"Baba Yaga," Katina repeated. "She was a witch in Russian folklore that flew around in a pestle, sweeping her tracks away behind her with a birchwood broom."

"I thought pestles were made of stone."

"They are," Katina nodded. "They're made of wood in some places too. But besides that, the three horsemen." She grabbed a book from beside her, sliding two other volumes from on top first.

"Look." She opened the book, flipping through the pages until she found the picture she was looking for. "There were three men on horses, one red, one white, one black. She called them her bright sun, her dawn, and her midnight. And the house? Baba Yagas' house was perched on chicken legs. It would turn around to show the entrance to those who knew how to ask."

The library, normally quiet in the morning, was filled the murmurs of other students in their off-block, chatting in low voices. Glenn sighed, shaking his head.

"So what? So the guy hallucinated about some old fairy tale. Who cares? That even sounds familiar to me. If I was drunk and having a nightmare, that would be pretty..."

"It's probably nothing," She interrupted. "But I guess it just struck me as strange."

Sure, it was strange. Even Glenn had to admit that the similarities were a little weird. In the brightly lit, cheerful and colourful library, the very idea that the man had a nightmare about such a weird witch seemed a little amusing. Still, even he couldn't shake the chill that went down his neck when Katina shut the book. Initially, she had been concentrating so hard on what she was reading that she hadn't even responded to him.

It was difficult for Glenn to write it off. Even if Katina said that it was probably nothing, there had to be something to it, or else she probably wouldn't have been as interested. Certainly not interested enough to go look up something about old women.

Otherwise, wouldn't she have looked up at him and given him the usual wise-cracking answer to his silly jokes?

Shaking off the feeling as just being a little bit of an over-reaction, Glenn stood up again. "You gonna be doing research on that babaganoush-lady all period?"

Katina shrugged her shoulders. She didn't get up from her place, but did restack her pile of books again, making sure they were neatly arranged so as not to fall over.

"Gimme the books." Glenn held out his hand. "At least come and sit with me at a table. You're so short that someone's bound to end up stepping on you."

"Short jokes? Really, Glenn?" Katina didn't move.

"Yes. I really just sank that low." Glenn chuckled at his own continuation of the joke.

Katina sighed, rubbing her face with her hand.

"If I get up, will you stop?"

"I'll only promise to put a little more thought into them." This only brought on an audible groan from Katina, who passed up a thick book that boasted to being 'The biggest encyclopedia of spirits and mythical beings'. Glenn held out his hand for another book, but the girl ignored him.

Standing up, Katina bent over to pick up the rest of her books, holding them against her chest. "I'm short, but I'm not unable to carry my own books," Katina protested. "God, Glenn."

"Girly arms," Glenn wrote it off with a smile as he headed back to the table where he'd left his things. Katina followed him, arms folded around her books.

Sinking into the chair she'd left her backpack hanging from, Katina sorted through the stack of books. The stout librarian stopped at the desk for a moment, passing her a newspaper, before he continued on with his trolley of books to be put away. He paused, looking back at Katina just long enough to speak to her.

"You asked if I'd hold it for you when it came in," The man said with a little smile. "Just make sure you bring it back to the desk." He turned back to his work, trolley wheels rolling silently against the carpet as he pushed.

Katina smiled in return. "Thanks. I'll do that, Joe."

"Joe? You're on a first name basis with the librarian, but everyone else is 'sir' and 'ma'am'?" Glenn tapped a pen against his notebook. "You're a real nerd, Katina." The statement earned a steady stare from the girl. "Hey, I'm just sayin'."

Katina smiled, shaking her head. She glanced down at the headline of the newspaper, surprised at the claim that small towns were being cut from communications, probably from some kind of solar flare storm. Without looking up from her new reading material, she pointed at Glenn.

"You know, if you're gonna do two rounds of physically strenuous activity in a day, you should consider bringing a change of clothes to school."

"I'm wearing clean underwear."

"Well, thank God." Clean underwear? Did he really need to announce that?

"And socks," Glenn added as an afterthought. He peered at the headline of the paper as Katina noisily rustled to the next page. "Solar storms? Wow. We must be pretty lucky, then. I thought solar storms generally affected everyone."

Surprised at the change in topic, but no less happy for it, Katina dropped the newspaper so that she could see her fellow classmate. He didn't appear to be joking around.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not really familiar with that kind of stuff. I'm hoping to get into college for classical literature, not space science." She didn't bother to mention that she was only getting by grade twelve sciences with a 'C'. Somehow, she got the sneaking suspicion that Glenn was pretty good at science.

Glenn rested his head on his hand, tapping the side of his head with the pen, instead of his notebook.

"Well, some solar storms can really screw up electronics. The temporary change in the Earth's magnetic field makes..." He paused, watching the surprised look on Katina's face. "What? I need good grades to go to college. Hockey scholarship or not, if I don't make the grade, I don't get the cash."

Blinking, Katina shook herself out of the temporary daze. She knew Glenn was intelligent, but it had never really occurred to her that he might offer information without being asked. Most of what he talked about was related to hockey. History, plays, how math played into those plays. The rest of the time, he asked her questions about what her newest book was about and spent the rest of the time appearing to listen intently while she blathered on about her new finds.

"I've never insinuated that you're stupid," She mumbled in a stunned tone. "I just didn't expect you to be interested in anything but hockey."

"You like track," Glenn accused. He was insulted. Trying his best not to come off as another dumb jock wasn't always easy, but he really did the best he could. Just because he didn't keep up with the girl in her love for classical literature, mythology and fairy tales, didn't mean that he was any less intelligent than she was.

"I'm not getting into college for my skills in track." Katina replied. She put the newspaper down on the desk, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry, Glenn. It's just... I don't think you're dumb or anything. I just didn't realise you enjoyed science."

"Well, I do." Glenn grumbled, leaning back in his chair. He fidgeted, putting his hands behind his head, rolling the pen between his fingers and skull. "I like science and mechanics a lot."

An uncomfortable silence settled between the two of them.

"I'm sorry." Katina apologized again. She didn't like seeing Glenn look so depressed, especially not when she'd been the direct cause of it. She felt as though she should have known that fact. Especially since they'd been going to school together since Junior High. Of course, they'd only been friends since their Sophomore year, but they were only social at school, or if they ran into one another in town.

"It's fine, I guess." He ran his tongue over his teeth in thought. Katina looked visibly upset by what she'd said. "If I wasn't going to college for my kickass ability to body check someone on the ice, I'd probably be a mechanic or something," Glenn tried to joke his way out of the awkwardness. "A kickass mechanic who could body check people."

Katina smiled at the half-hearted joke, hanging her head and giggling.

"Body checking anyone who didn't get their oil changed every five-hundred miles or whatever, right?"

"Five-thousand." Glenn corrected her.

"See? This is why I'm not a mechanic. I'd destroy my car in no time." Katina glanced back up at Glenn, who seemed to relax a little more. He was looking like himself again. Thank goodness.

Looking back down at the headlines in the newspaper, Katina scanned over a submission from a woman who claimed that the blackouts were running across the country. Communications had been cut. People were hallucinating en-masse.

Sounded an awful lot like the end of the world, when reporters wrote things like that, Katina thought. But obviously the end of the world hadn't come yet. It was still going on. Besides that, people had been surviving power outages and everything else for ages. It was fine.

People were just over reacting.


	4. Day 10, 0845hrs

Sean locked his bike to the rack at school. The skies were grim looking, threatening rain, but he'd still decided to ride in. The weather man had said sunshine, after all. Eventually, the clouds would clear up. This was typical Canadian east coast weather. Ten minutes, half an hour, and the weather would be completely changed.

Weather was, however, the last of Sean's worries. There were other, far more pressing matters on his mind.

Glenn smacked him on the shoulder. "Hey, man."

Sean nodded his head with a grunt.

Being the loud, friendly and happy kind of guy that Sean normally was, it struck Glenn as being a red flag. Something was definitely up.

"You okay?"

Sean shook his head no. He looked down at his bike, his thick hand wrapping tightly around the handlebar. His knuckles went white.

"Sean?"

"My kid sister called last night. She was freaking out. Wheezing and coughing... All that shit. Sounded like she'd just used her puffer. She said that the power was out, people were freaking out. She was crying, man." Sean stopped glaring down at the bike. He looked over at his friend.

In that moment, Glenn saw something he had never seen from a peer before: Genuine fear.

"Elaine's car stalled on an overpass in town. Abby said that she had been dragged off by some kind of hairy beast from underneath. She was hiding in the car. She kept asking me if I could come and get her. The call dropped. I have no idea what happened."

Freckles vanishing under a sheet of red, frustrated blush, Sean rubbed his face. "Mom said that she was probably having a night terror. Otherwise, why call my cell instead of Dad? But... Then Don was saying stuff about leaving town and how he'd been hearing rumours at work about weird things."

Glenn felt his tongue turn to lead. Sean dealt a lot with his younger sister. Abby was eight years younger than her brother. She lived with her step-mother and their father in the next city over. They talked to each other a lot more than they talked to their parents and step-parents. But as tangled up as their lives at home were, Sean very seldom ever mentioned what was going on between them.

"Did she call you back?"

"No," Sean looked down at the ground. "Dude. I tried calling my uncle to have him go pick her up, but his phone was down. Same with his cell phone. And when Mom called the police station, those phones were down, too. Don got the phone book, and just started calling everyone with that area code. Nobody's phones are working." He lowered his voice as students milled around. "Glenn. I'm really worried about Abby. For all I know, she's still sitting in Elaine's car, scared to get out, hiding under the seat and crying for me to come and save her."

Nobody else stopped to ask what was going on as Sean's voice cracked.

"I don't know what to do, man."

Glenn didn't know what to say. What could he possibly offer Sean that would help stave off the horror that he was currently facing?

0905hrs

Looking around the classroom, Katina took mental count of how many students were absent. The number had been slowly increasing over the last few days. It shouldn't have been surprising, given the rumours of communication vanishing across the country. Even with the headlines being absent of any news regarding the total silence, people knew. The rumours only became strengthened with each passing day.

What did surprise Katina was how quiet the classroom seemed to be. Students were talking in low voices in little groups. The room should have been louder. It was almost as though everything had been muffled by some unseen blanket.

One of the girls was sobbing. Katina recognised her as one of the exchange students from Quebec. She could just barely hear the girl speaking in hiccup-riddled Québécois. The girls who surrounded her were patting her back and uttering words of comfort in the same language. One of them put her forehead against the top of the sobbing student's head, and shut her eyes, as though in prayer.

Something was wrong, she thought. Something was so wrong. The school was generally noisy and at least playful. Sure, teens didn't always want to be there, but the social aspects of things were often cheery. Today, it seemed abnormally dark and desperate. And with so many students absent, it didn't help anything.

Even Mr. Morris, the Classical Literature teacher, was oddly devoid of his usually downright gossipy nature, opting instead for something far more taciturn. Without a single joke or even a smile, the man asked everyone to please just use their time to study, as he sat behind his desk, turning the recently-received wedding band on his finger nervously.

The power went out.

There was an initial shocked cry from the students in the room. Mr. Morris seemed unaffected. In fact, he appeared to have expected it. He sank lower in his chair, pausing in the playing of his ring just long enough to put both of his hands flat against the desk. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, as though bracing himself for some unseen threat.

Katina wasn't scared of the dark. The classroom was lit well enough from the dim morning light that came in through the windows. But she did feel a trickle of paranoia run down her neck, into her chest. What she was afraid of, Katina wasn't sure, but fear nibbled at her instincts like a mouse, chewing holes in her sensibilities as she found herself waiting with Mr. Morris, expecting some force to suddenly appear.

Out of instinct, Katina grabbed her cellphone from her pocket and tried turning the screen on. She pressed the button three times, waiting to see the blink of a time and date, or at least the familiar wallpaper she had been using since her trip to Mexico City the summer before. When nothing happened, she felt a stab of panic.

Maybe if she power-cycled the phone...

But then what?

She didn't know who she had hoped to call or text, but it didn't matter.

Despite the effort to power cycle, holding down the button for almost a full ten seconds, nothing happened.

The cellphone was dead.

Across campus, in Power Mechanics class, Glenn was making the same realization. He pulled off his gloves, trying to turn his own cellphone on. Nothing happened. For a brief moment, he thought back to what Sean had said about his sister's cell phone shutting off.

He suddenly thought of Sean's sister, and how afraid she must have been when the phone didn't come back on.

"Everyone needs to stay where they are," Mr. Chezman said calmly. "Devon, Mike, there should be flashlights plugged into the wall behind you." The narrow windows that lined the upper part of the class were covered in soot and dust and didn't allow in as much natural light as could be considered safe for maneuvering around the shop.

"This one isn't working," Devon called.

"Mine, either." Mike replied. "Maybe something blew the batteries when the power went out."

Glenn doubted it. What kind of power outage could kill cellphones? He thought about what he and Katina had been reading the day before about the solar storms.

"There's been solar storms," He spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear him. "My cell's dead. Maybe we've gotten a hit from them."

"Good theory, but a solar storm wouldn't affect the flashlights," Mr. Chezman commented. He didn't sound very sure about it, though. "They don't run on the same system of power."

"I knew it!" Came a female voice across the room. Glenn was pretty sure it was Rachel from his ABT class. "I knew this was gonna happen. They were talkin' about all this on the news 'n in the papers, and now it's hit here!" From the sound of her voice, she was already in a panic.

"Rach is right," the other girl in class said. "I was reading about this in the papers. The power and communication goes down and nobody hears back from anyone."

"I wanna go home."

"My phone won't turn on." The student aid spoke up from the rear of the class.

"Mine either." Another student chimed in.

"What about an EMP?" Someone else suggested. "What if there's gonna be some kinda nuclear strike or something? Isn't that one of the signs?"

The comment set off a mix of responses that were both disbelieving and panicked.

Glenn felt a surge of aggravation. Why couldn't everyone just stay calm? They were safe. Nothing had happened that would put them in danger, so why were they all acting so stupid? Why couldn't they just see that everything was fine?

"Shut up already," He demanded. "It's just the power. You people are fine!"

It was easier to snap at everyone else's stupidity than it was to admit that he was feeling the same panic. Glenn would never admit it out loud. He wouldn't be responsible for adding to the mentality that they were powerless. "It's just a fucking power outage."

"Language, Rentholen." The teacher corrected Glenn, as if it would help things seem somewhat normal.

It did nothing.

"Alright," Mr. Chezman spoke up as the murmuring that began again. "That's enough. Everyone make your way to the outer walls of the shop. Watch your feet the best you can. I know the light isn't the best in here, but it's not pitch black."

Making their way across the shop, someone opened the door that led to the outside. Dim light helped people find their way as they tried to hurry out.

Stepping out onto the concrete sidewalk that surrounded the shop, Glenn looked up at the sky. The clouds were still just as grey and low as they had been before class. Nothing appeared to have changed at first.

"So much for sunshine." muttered Rachel as she passed by Glenn.

It took several moments of being outside for the unusual silence of the outdoors to truly sink in. The street that was normally alive with local traffic, students, and buses, was absolutely dead.

Even the campus itself seemed to be muted.

No birds chirped. The sounds of traffic from the busy road beside the school were gone. Glenn couldn't hear the ventilation fans on the top of the school humming like they normally did.

The silence made Glenn's skin crawl.

"Hey, look. Traffic's stopped." A student pointed to the road on the other side of the fence that cut off school grounds from private property.

Everyone in class turned to take a look. Sure enough, bewildered drivers and passengers were getting out of their vehicles. Their talking among one another was barely a murmur. Not only had the power and cell phones gone out, but it seemed the all of the vehicles had suddenly gone dead.

There didn't appear to be any injuries, despite that. Although there should have been a number of accidents from the vehicles being in drive when they ceased working, everyone seemed to be unscathed. Like someone had suddenly just placed an anvil on top of every car, truck, and bus, and made it stop cold in its tracks.

It didn't seem as though anyone was hurt, which all were grateful for, but it certainly made for a confusing situation.


	5. Day 10, 0945hrs

"My watch stopped." Ms. Dean held it up to her ear in the futile hope that she was wrong. The last three times she'd checked it, it had read 9:35. A shame that the battery had gone, she thought. She didn't want to pay for a new one.

 

"I think your watch is the least of our worries, Amber." the Vice Principal took a sip of cold coffee from her travel mug. "We have six hundred and eleven students who need to be sent home... And two thirds of them take buses out of the area. Buses that aren't starting."

 

"What do you think's happening, Joanne?" There was hesitation in Amber's voice. She knew the answer was likely that the older woman knew about as much as she did: Nothing. Neither of them had anything to go from other than the sparse reports from the local word of mouth.

 

The Vice Principal took in a long breath. She ran thin, knobbly fingers through her grey hair.

 

"I suppose I don't know, Amber." She uttered softly. "I've been listening to the same rumours as everyone else. I know you have, too. Nobody knows."

 

"I had hoped they were just rumours," Amber put her watch to her ear again. "You know how people get when things go wrong."

 

"Did you prepare for this?"

 

"No. Not really. My father insisted on making sure that I put aside several gallons of water, just in case the water pump stopped out at the house. But, like I said, I thought they were rumours. It's only been a week. Who knew what was going on?"

 

"I've lived through a lot worse than the power going out. I'm sure we'll be fine."

 

That earned a soft grunt of agreement from the younger teacher. She didn't look convinced.

 

Students and teachers were standing in the school's gymnasium as rain poured down on the Plexiglass ceiling. 

 

The students had grouped together, as students tended to do, clamouring nervously to one another. Had the lights been on, and the bleachers been set up, the gathering might have been mistaken for some kind of pre-pep-rally gathering. That might have been a stretch, given how surprisingly muted everything sounded. 

 

It was obvious that some of the students were trying to joke about the situation, but the air of concern was still thick in the room. Everyone felt like they knew that this was whatever it was that had kept every other town silent.

 

Katina tried to comfort Tanya, but she knew it was useless. After doing as much as she could to make sure that her friend was comfortable and with more friends who could try and keep her calm, she excused herself.

 

The students that stood around were almost as somber as the teachers and faculty. It left her feeling sick.

 

The rumours had been right after all, she thought. The niggling feeling that her mother had been right lingered there, too. Fear crept up her neck, into her shoulders. 

 

She wasn't ready. 

 

Taking a breath, Katina glanced around her immediate surroundings. She wasn't sure why her first instinct was to look for Glenn. They were friends, sure, but they ran with different crowds. It wasn't logical.

 

She spotted Glenn talking to Sean. The freckle faced boy was visibly upset. He was getting loud. Loud enough to make other students turn to watch.

 

"I need to go!" Sean insisted. "My mom's at home by herself. She's gonna be scared."

 

Glenn took Sean by the shoulders. "Listen, I know you're worried about your mom, but you can't just run off like that. If you do, and Don comes to get you but you aren't here, what do you think'll happen?" He took a deep breath. "Man, just think about it for a minute."

 

"All the cars have stopped, you saw it." Sean pushed Glenn's hands away. "Don isn't coming. He's in the city, working. If he's lucky, this hasn't reached him yet. But what about when it does? What then? And what about my mom? She's on oxygen. The tank has a backup battery on it, but how long will that last?"

 

"Do you even hear yourself?" Glenn demanded. "You're talking like the power ain't ever coming back! What's with you? You're acting like this is the end of the world or something. It's just a power out. Maybe a solar flare. It might just be a fluke! But you running off isn't gonna help a damn thing, Sean."

 

"Stop," Katina cut in. "Both of you." 

 

There were teachers on their way to break up the argument. None of the other students stepped in. They were all looking at one another with a wary agreement. Sean was only voicing what a lot of other people were beginning to feel about their own families. There were many students who had parents that worked in the city, forty minutes away. Even more that worked at the oil refinery in the opposite direction.

 

Glenn paused his tirade to take note of Katina's presence. Sean glared down at the shorter girl.  
"Tell your boyfriend to..."

 

"He's not my boyfriend," Katina spoke as calmly as she could. "Glenn." She turned her attention to the blonde teen. "Let him go home. The power isn't going to come back on."

 

Both boys stared at Katina.

 

"And how the hell would you know?" Glenn frowned. He didn't want to think that Katina had bought into this horror crap that everyone had been peddling.

 

"Because it hasn't gone back on anywhere else," She was trying to remain calm. Logic had to prevail somewhere. "It's not the Apocalypse or anything," Katina looked back to Sean. "But nothing has come back on anywhere that this has hit. If it had, we would have heard about it already."

 

"Are you really gonna listen to that crap, Kat? I thought you were better than that!"

 

"It's not crap!" Sean protested. "What about what happened to Abby? And you heard what Joe said about his mom at practice yesterday."

 

"Stop already!" Katina spoke over the two of them as she folded her arms impatiently. "Sean, if you're really that worried about your mom, tell one of the teachers and leave. What're they gonna do, lock us up here?"

 

Sean and Glenn exchanged looks. She had a point. Every other time the power had ever gone out, students had been sent home within the hour.

One of the middle school teachers approached the three of them. He looked annoyed, but just as afraid as everyone else present. Just as the man opened his mouth to say something, everyone in the gymnasium turned to face the principal as he climbed halfway up the janitor's painting ladder.

 

"Alright everyone, listen up!" The principal was standing on a ladder hands cupped around his mouth. The gym went silent. "As you can see, the power is out. The phone lines are down. Staff is telling me that the busses aren't starting, so I need everyone who lives out of town to follow Vice Principal Sanderson and other faculty members to the other end of the gymnasium. Anyone who lives within walking distance of the school needs to come see myself and the staff on this side of the gymnasium. Line up in front of school staff by your last name! Have your student ID ready! Once you've checked in with staff, they will instruct you further."

 

Katina looked up at Sean. She reached out, touching his shoulder gently. "You'll be home in no time."

 

Glenn felt himself bristle at the sight of Katina being so gentle with someone who was being, in his opinion, incredibly stupid. Folding his arms bitterly, he tried to make himself understand where Sean was coming from.

He knew that Mrs. Finnegan was easily worried, especially about her children. She had always been like that. Ever since she had been diagnosed with lung cancer, it had only gotten worse. She couldn't leave the house often, so she wanted to know where Sean was at every waking moment.

It only made sense that Sean wanted to make sure she was alright.

 

Katina was walking away.

 

Normally Glenn would have let her go and joined the people who were lining up in front of the P-R card that the band teacher was holding up. Something stopped him. Maybe it was the sight of her pausing to glance back at him. 

 

She gave a wan smile, putting up a hand to show she'd seen his look. Or maybe it was the fact that she turned away from him a second time, continuing to the lineup for the other students that shared the first letter of her last name.

 

His mouth was dry. What if everyone was right to be afraid? What if he was the one who was wrong this time? No. He was right. He had to be right. Still; no matter how Glenn tried to rationalize it all, a power outage didn't take into account everything else that was going on.

 

Glenn hated being wrong.


	6. Day 10, 1150hrs

Townshend Street was surprisingly quiet for midday. Most days, rain or shine, people would be sitting on their porches, sheltered from the elements, enjoying the sounds of the neighbourhood. 

 

Here, the middle of the day was always the most peaceful, but never quiet. 

 

Pre-kindergarten children played in front yards under the watchful eyes of parents or grandparents, and the local mailman would be stuffing fliers into the street-end post-box, banging the metal plates shut as he finished his deliveries. There were two couples at the end of the street, both elderly and retired, who often played bridge together on an old metal table in front of #12. 

 

Today, despite the warmth of the air, people were inside. Front doors were shut. Windows were shut. The rain came down in a steady, but gentle, stream. 

 

Katina and Glenn walked together on the sidewalk. When they had left the school, the rain had been pounding down with such force that it felt like they were being pushed along in a hurry. Now, drenched and chilled, the two of them traveled in silence. 

 

Students from not only the high school, but the local elementary and middle schools were hurrying along the sidewalks to get home. Worried adults ushered them indoors. Sometimes neighbours would call out to children other than their own, waving them into their houses instead of the children's own; Children whose parents probably worked on the other end of town, or in the city.

 

Katina hadn't realised how many of her classmates lived on this street. She supposed it made sense. Townshend was a long street, cut in two by a park and recreation centre in the middle. It was in the center of the populated area for their small town, so it was only logical that the majority of the families who lived in town, lived right around them.

 

"Looks like a ghost town," Glenn commented. The fact that his neighbourhood was even quieter than the streets had been on the way there, despite the increase of foot traffic, really worried him. 

 

His parent's car wasn't in the driveway. In a way, Glenn had expected it to be. At least that would have given a sense of normalcy. Not seeing that familiar sight of the blue, second-hand Ford actually made him feel even more uncomfortable than any of the gossip and talk from the people at school. Having already seen what had happened to the other vehicles around them left Glenn worried that his mother, or father, had been abandoned in town somewhere.

 

"I guess so."

 

Katina tried to figure out what she was going to do when she got home. She already knew that her parents wouldn't be there. Neither would the neighbours on either side of them. Without the power running, the big tropical fish that her father kept in the family room would probably die. She wondered how long it would take. A morbid thought, but temporarily distracting.

 

The rain got harder temporarily, before letting up again. 

 

Glenn had only just glanced up to his house when saw his mother looking at them from out their kitchen window. She had a look of relief on her face, dropping the blue curtains to head for the front door.

 

"Glenn!" The front door opened, revealing a slender, older woman. Evelyn Rentholen barely stepped over the threshold of the entryway. "Thank goodness you're alright. I've been watching for you since I saw the Campbells' kids come home."

 

"Of course I'm fine, Mom." Glenn pursed his lips as he climbed the stairs of the porch. Katina paused at the sidewalk, as though thinking for a moment. 

 

"It's just a power out." He had said it enough times that somehow; Glenn had hoped he could start to believe the mantra himself.

 

It wasn't working.

 

"Is that Katina?" Evelyn was looking past Glenn to the young woman on the sidewalk. Without waiting for an answer, she beckoned for the girl to come inside. "Your parents teach at the University, right? You come inside and wait with us. Better than staying at home by yourself in this."

 

Katina shook her head.

 

"No, it's fine, ma'am."

 

"No, it's not fine," Mrs. Rentholen insisted. "You can stay with us until..." she paused, lowering her voice. "You can stay with us until this whole thing blows over." She waved her hand, ushering Katina towards them. 

 

Katina sighed and nodded her head in a grateful gesture. 

 

She was beginning to wonder if she was the only one who understood that this wasn't just going to go away. Even without the knowledge that she had personally, it had to be obvious by now that things weren't going to change. 

 

As far as anyone knew, none of the other cities had suddenly found themselves with power and communications again.

 

But it had only been a short time since word of the strange stories had reached their area. Maybe things had changed.

 

One could hope.

 

Katina didn't. 

 

In the meantime, though, why should she have to stay in the house alone? Her mother and father probably would have preferred her to stay with someone who was going to make sure she was alright, even though Katina was relatively sure she could take care of herself.

 

"Alright, let me just go home to grab some things. Dry clothes, some candles to help out. I'll be back in a little while." She turned back to the rain, walking down the sidewalk with a quick enough pace that she couldn't hear Glenn's mother protest her walking alone.

 

Glenn watched Katina as she walked away.

 

"I'm gonna go with her."

 

"Go," Despite the fact that Evelyn was hesitant, she gestured for him to get moving. "Shoo, already."

 

Glenn ducked away from the shelter of their front porch to venture back into the rain again. He cursed the feel of the wet jeans against his legs as he dashed to catch up to Katina.

 

"Hey, wait a minute," he caught up to her quickly, falling into quick pace beside her.

 

Katina jumped at the sound of his voice. She had been thinking about what he had said about Sean's sister, and the monster that she had seen at the overpass. The thought was pushed aside when she looked up to meet his gaze.

 

"What? Go back home, Glenn. It's pouring rain."

 

 

"I'm already wet, so I might as well walk with you."

 

 

She rolled her eyes, taking off her glasses again to wipe away more rain with her fingers. Katina's wet bra straps were starting to rub her shoulders raw. She'd have to remember to grab a couple of sports bras.

 

 

"If you must." she sighed in defeat.

 

 

Glenn didn't justify the annoyed sigh with a reply. He hadn't intended on letting her walk home alone. She might have seemed calm, but it seemed as though Katina was actually quite afraid. He had to correct himself; it seemed as though everyone was afraid. As they walked past the park and recreation center that split the street in half, he couldn't help but look up at the dome of the recreation center.

 

 

He had to do a double take. For a moment, Glenn thought he had seen a shadow on top. It didn't make any sense, he knew. Nobody could possibly be up on top of the building. Even if they could be up here, who in their right mind would try to be up there during a rainstorm? There hadn't been much lightning, but there had been plenty of thunder. It couldn't have been safe.

 

"Don't stare," Katina spoke in a warning voice.

 

Tearing his gaze from the building, Glenn stared at Katina in surprise.

 

 

"Did you..?" He gestured to the building subtly, hoping she had seen what he had.

 

"Did I what?" Katina didn't look up at him. "We're almost at my place." She pointed at a two story, Tudor style home with a lawn that hadn't been mown in at least a couple of weeks. She fished a key out of her shirt from a chain she wore around her neck.

 

"I thought I saw something." Glenn swallowed. Now he was sounding like the other idiots out there who had been going on about all those rumours. "Nevermind."

 

Katina nodded her head; whether in acknowledgement or because she had seen the shadow too, he couldn't tell. Glenn followed her up the sidewalk that led to the front door.

 

Although the two had sometimes ended up walking together the last block before Glenn's own house, he had never been this far down the block. As such, he had never seen Katina's house. For a moment, he felt a little bit nervous.

 

 

Considering Katina as friend at school had happened so easily, he wasn't sure why they hadn't connected outside of it. Sure, they ran with different crowds, but it wasn't as though the girl was socially inept. It just seemed as though she enjoyed the company of books over the company of schoolmates.

 

 

If Glenn's thought about Katina's choice of companionship from their interaction at school wasn't enough, it was absolutely reaffirmed as he entered the house behind Katina. The entryway was clean enough, with two small racks for shoes and a coat rack screwed to the wall being the only décor at first. But once they were past the entry, it was obvious that Katina and her family spent a lot of time in books. There were stacks of library books on the coffee table in the living room. Two more were on the back of the couch, covers open, lying upside down to mark the reading places. There were books on top of the television, too.

 

 

Book cases lined the back wall of the living room. Although there weren't just books on the shelves, it was obvious that the books saw more action than the television did.

 

 

"I feel like I just walked into a library," He joked.

 

"You should see the office," Katina commented, checking the large tropical fish tank. "I wonder if I ought to feed them," She sighed. "With no power, the oxygen filter isn't gonna work. Poor things're gonna suffocate." Her father would be upset about the fish, but there was no helping it. It wasn't as though she could just throw the things into a pond somewhere.

 

Glenn peered into the tank, searching for what Katina was talking about. He saw a couple of good sized brown and silver looking fish and some kind of fish at the bottom that kept burrowing under the sand.

 

Katina lit a candle that had been hidden between books and nick-knacks on the book cases at the back of the room. It didn't provide much light in the windowed living room, but it would do the trick to help her get through the house without bumping into things in the hallway. The dim light from outside only provided a little bit of relief, but it kept the living room from being a death trap.

 

"You, uh... Need help?"

 

 

"I need to change clothes and put some together for..." Katina paused, looking away from Glenn. "Your place, I guess."

 

"Something wrong?"

 

Katina shook her head, pulling her hood off of her head as she headed down the hallway. The idea of going to Glenn's house was alien. She was plenty social with her girlfriends, but Glenn, for the most part, was the only male friend that she was comfortable enough around that she could be conned into going into his home. "You want a towel for your hair?"

 

 

Glenn followed her down the hallway. "Yes, actually. That would be great." He barely got the words out before a towel hit him in the face. He heard a giggle from the stairs that started at the end of the hallway. "Oh, haha. Slap the blind guy in the face with a towel."

 

 

"You're not blind," Katina argued from halfway up the stairs. Her voice faltered. "You can come up. Just watch your step."

 

"Hard to watch anything in the dark," Glenn whined.

 

Katina shook her head, waiting for Glenn to catch up.

 

"So. What's upstairs? Secret stash of porn?" He tried to keep the conversation light.

 

"My room," Katina replied. "Mom and Dad's room."

 

Glenn was surprised.

 

"Only two rooms?" he wondered. "Really?" The house had appeared to be a pretty good size from outside.

 

"Well," Katina pulled open a curtain in the upstairs hallway. "The office was once a guest room, until Dad got all 'Home Reno' on Mom and me. Came home from school one day when I was in elementary to find that he had knocked down the wall between the guest room and what had been the study. He said that the study wasn't big enough for him and mom." She offered. "There is another room up here, but it's real small, so I use it for my stuff."

 

"Your stuff?" Glenn wondered.

 

 

Katina didn't elaborate. "Yeah." She opened a bedroom door, handed Glenn the candle and pointed down the hallway. "That's the bathroom, if you wanna try and wring out your clothes or something. I'm gonna be a minute."

 

Before Glenn could ask how she was going to see what she was doing, the bedroom door shut in his face. He decided that wringing out his clothes was probably a semi-decent idea. Then again, why did it matter? They were just going to head back into the rain when Katina had her stuff together.

 

Sighing, he headed for the bathroom. He caught movement from the corner of his eye. Pausing for a moment at the open door of what must have been Mr. and Mrs. Ashton's bedroom, Glenn looked around for the source of the movement. The thin curtains above the bed had been pulled back. There was a pair of pajama pants lying on the end of the neatly made bed and a glass of water on the bedside table. Two more books were lying on the bedside table with the alarm clock with a pair of reading glasses sitting unfolded on top.

 

 

The curtains billowed softly, revealing an open window behind them. 

 

Setting the candle on the bedroom dresser, he reached up to close the window. There was water on the ledge and the carpet.

 

"Glenn, you're getting jumpy," He scolded himself. Next thing he knew, he'd be acting like an idiot with all the other people in town.

 

Katina opened the curtains of her bedroom, letting in what little light there was from the outside. It was enough to let her find some clean clothes and get changed without falling over anything, and for that she was grateful. The familiar settings, pale yellow walls and white shelves full of books, were shadowed just enough to make the room look chilly and unwelcoming.

 

 

Stripping out of her soggy clothes, Katina draped them over the laundry hamper. She'd have to remember to put them in the shower to dry so that they didn't leave a puddle on her floor. 

 

Redressing in clean clothes, she took a moment to check herself in the cheap mirror she had mounted on the back of her bedroom door.

 

"Mirror, mirror on the wall," the girl sighed.

 

Turning back to her chore, she grabbed her track bag and started throwing clothes inside. Usually, she would have taken the time to make sure they were folded, but today she didn't care. Once the clothes were packed, she turned her attention to the books on her desk and shelves.

 

Grabbing a thick journal and an even thicker book that she had been reading over the previous week, Katina set them in her bag as well. She picked up a picture frame from her night stand, looking down at the smiling faces of her mother and father. Katina paused, staring at her parents.

 

She removed the photograph from its frame, putting it in between the pages of her journal.

 

"Glenn? Are you done?" Katina started down the hallway. The bathroom door was shut. She couldn't see any light under the door, but knowing that he was only using a candle, she didn't figure she'd see any significant light. She knocked on the door.

 

"You in there?" Opening the door, Katina was surprised not to find any candlelight. Glenn wasn't in the bathroom. His wet towel was sitting in a lump on the counter. "Glenn? Where'd you go?"

 

"I'm in here," Glenn stuck his head out of the small room that Katina had told him that she used for her 'stuff'. "What's all this?"

 

Katina hurried down the hallway, pushing the door the rest of the way open. Glenn was standing in the middle of wall-to-wall book shelves. In front of the small window was a little lounge chair. It wasn't the library of her own books that Katina had been bothered by. It was the fact that Glenn was browsing over her collection of photographs and newspaper clippings. They all featured strange and unusual reports, including some of the most recent newspaper reports. All of Katina's friends knew that she liked to read about unearthly things, but Glenn was the only one of her friends who knew how obsessive she could be over the supernatural. She wasn't so sure she wanted him to know just how obsessed she was.

 

 

"A hobby," She snapped. "Let's go down and get the hurricane lamp out of the kitchen and..."

 

 

"I'm a hobby?" Glenn turned around, holding a picture of him in his hockey jersey from the junior yearbook.

 

Choking on her words, Katina turned colours in the cloudy afternoon light. The candle that she had given Glenn was casting just enough light on her face that he could clearly see her expression changing.

 

 

"You... It's... You're my friend, you idiot. Of course I've got a picture of you!" Katina was shaking. If she had been embarrassed over keeping so much paraphernalia regarding the supernatural, she was prepared to die over the fact that Glenn had inadvertently stumbled over the picture that she kept of him. "Don't think so highly of yourself." She turned on her heel, stomping down the hall and down the stairs in the dark.

 

 

Mildly surprised, but also sort of pleased over the flustered reaction of his friend, Glenn set the photograph back on the shelf. He shook his head, glad that he had been able to find something to smile about. Maybe she had just kept the picture there because she was his friend, but there hadn't been any other pictures of friends or school peers in the little room. But Glenn was smart enough to know not to push the topic.

 

 

"Hey," He started down the stairs. "What was with all the supernatural stuff?" He stepped into the kitchen as Katina was lighting another candle. "I mean, why are you so embarrassed over it? I watch you read four or five books on that kind of stuff every week. It's not a big deal."

 

 

Katina didn't look back to Glenn. She opened the pantry door, stepping inside.

 

"I told you, it's a hobby." She was silent as she dug through shelves to find the lamp she was looking for.

 

 

"So? I like to collect those mini puzzles out of..."

 

"It's a weird hobby, Glenn." Katina came out of the pantry, carrying the hurricane lamp and a small grocery bag full of emergency candles. "Most of my girlfriends have hobbies in sports or collecting little ponies or... Normal stuff. Being into the paranormal isn't..." She sighed. "Forget it."

 

 

"It's not weird," Glenn assured his friend. "Being so defensive over it is, though."

 

Katina said nothing as she opened a cabinet and started pulling down canned food items. She pointed to the refrigerator. "If there's anything you like in there, you can have it."

 

 

"If you leave it closed, the food will keep. You know that, right?"

 

 

Katina wanted to argue with Glenn that she didn't think the power would come back on, but there was still no way to be certain of her private theories. Shrugging her shoulders, she went back to taking non-perishable items out of the cupboard.

 

Glenn hadn't missed her strange behaviour. He folded his arms, leaning against the counter. Huffing, he put his head back until it reached the cabinets above. He stared at the dark pot-lights in the ceiling.

 

"Hey, Kat?"

 

"What?" She tried not to sound terse.

 

"You don't have to be scared, y'know."

 

Hand on a box of crackers, Katina stopped. She thought about the words, tumbling them around in her mind. He was right; she didn't have to be scared. And logically speaking, there was no reason to be afraid of the power going out. Or the cellphones not working. Or cars suddenly stalling out. Individually, they were all three easily written off as incidents.

 

 

It was all them in combination that frightened the teen.

 

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I know."

 

Something was off. Katina looked around the kitchen; hand on the bag of non-perishable foods that she had set on the countertop. Everything in the kitchen was neat and tidy. No, not just neat and tidy; immaculate.

 

"Everything's put away," She uttered. Now that she thought about it, just that morning, she had needed to rummage through most of the cabinets just to find the cereal. Just then, however, she hadn't needed to do anything more than just grab a couple of tins of tuna, which had been neatly stacked, both labels facing the front, just like all of the other canned goods in the cupboard.

 

Glenn took a look around the kitchen.

 

"Yeah; so?"

 

"Count."

 

Glenn squinted at Katina as though she'd lost her mind.

 

"What?"

 

Katina opened the drawer where she and her parents usually threw the junk mail, odd keys and nails, random bits of coupons and the one or two off batteries. Everything was arranged neatly in rows, like things stacked together, almost comically.

 

"OCD. They like to count and neatly arrange, like obsessive compulsive people do."

 

Glenn shook his head, trying to grasp what his friend was going on about.

 

"Kat, are you okay?"

 

She swallowed. Glancing up, she walked past Glenn, praying she was wrong. She opened the fridge. The apples and tangerines that her father had bought in the grocery trip a few days prior were stacked in neat little pyramids on the bottom shelf. The apple, orange and iced-tea containers were all lined up neatly in the door, labels to the front. Judging by the way they were arranged, it was from most left in the container, to least.

 

"We have to go."

 

Glenn frowned.

 

"What's going on, Kat?"

 

"Don't worry about it," She said, grabbing the plastic bag of non-perishables. She all but threw it to Glenn as she shouldered her gym bag and made to leave as quickly as possible. 

 

"We have to go. Now." She hurried for the door, suddenly stopping in her tracks when a shadow crossed over the entrance between the kitchen and the living room.

 

"Kat, you're acting weird!"

 

"Please, Glenn."

 

He stared at Katina, watching her face. She was obviously afraid of something, but just what she was afraid of, he couldn't tell. It didn't seem as though Katina was going to tell him, either. 

 

Katina grabbed Glenn by the arm, before peeking into the living room. Books had been neatly stacked and shelves had been cleared and reorganized. And while Glenn could not see it, Ina knew already that the culprit was lurking in the corner of the room, hunched over a small stack of old theatre pamphlets that her mother had been keeping in the drawer of the writing desk beside her chair.

 

 

"Shut your eyes. Follow my lead." She took a deep breath, reaching out to the wall that would lead them back to the entryway.

 

"Wait, this is stupid," Glenn protested. He tried to pull i hand away, but didn't do so hard enough for Katina to release him. "What're you all freaked out about?"

 

"Do it!" Katina commanded. The figure in the corner straightened. Katina looked over her shoulder at him. "Please," She lowered her voice. It was shaking. "Just... do it for me." Her hand was trembling, gripping Glenn's forearm with a vice-hold.

 

"If it was anyone else..." Glenn muttered. He shut his eyes as Katina pulled on his arm.

 

Closing her own eyes, Katina used the wall to guide her way through the living room. She was breathing shallowly, trying to keep her ears sharp to any giveaway noises that might come from around them. Trembling as she reached the fish tank, Katina stepped on something that squished noisily under her foot.

 

Out of instinct, rather than intelligence, she opened her eyes, looking down. The fish were laying on the floor. They were all dead. 

 

From the corner of her eye, Katina caught the shadow watching her. Its eyes, seemingly as big around as dinner places, glinted in dim light. 

 

Katina reached back up again. Her hand landed on the canister of fish food. Swallowing, she wrapped her fingers around the cardboard container, slipping it into her hoodie pocket as she continued to walk.

 

 

"Not good," She whispered to herself. Swallowing, she continued on.

 

"What?" Glenn frowned even deeper. With his eyes closed, he couldn't see anything. He was going to open his eyes to try and help Katina with whatever it was she was having an issue with, but she spoke before he could. 

 

"Don't open your eyes," Katina shut her eyes again. Ignoring the dead fish and the wet floor. Fear rolled down her chest and gave her sudden urge to vomit from fear. Despite this, she made her way to the entry.

 

Then, not waiting for another second, she threw open the front door, grabbed an umbrella, shoved Glenn out in front of her and slammed it behind her. Inside, Katina heard a noise like someone was rattling with windows.

 

"Go." She pointed down the street. She turned her attention to the stolen container, struggling to get the fish food container open.

 

"Come on."

 

"What are you doing?"

 

"Just go."

 

"Gimme that." Glenn snatched the fish food from her. Shaking his head as he popped off the lid, he handed it back. "What're you doing with the fish flakes?"

 

Katina shook her head, turning her back to Glenn. She walked down the porch steps backwards, dumping the fish food behind her as she went. He was looking out at the deserted street, plastic bags hanging from his hands.

 

Looking up at the door, Katina saw a hand pressed against the stained glass window that was mounted at the top. It was almost eleven feet off the ground. A hand never shoulder have been able to reach up there. The unusual design, a Celtic knot that her mother had once told her was for protection from evil, cracked down the center.

 

Jumping back, Katina dropped the container of fish flakes.

 

"You coming, Kat?" Glenn didn't seem to have seen what she had. He was his usual calm, mildly annoyed self, standing there, waiting for her to follow.

 

"Y-Yeah." Opening her umbrella, Katina joined her friend. They walked slowly in the rain.

 

After they had passed the recreation centre, Glenn looked down at Katina.

 

"You alright?" he asked.

 

Katina swallowed, licking her lips in thought. Would he believe her if she told him? If she explained to him what she had known all along?

 

 

Unlikely. Glenn didn't believe in those things. He could barely even believe in what was happening all around him. How likely was it for him to believe Katina if she told him that there had been a very real vampire in her home? 

 

 

Katina shook her head. She found herself watching the ground as she walked. "I guess those rumours are getting to me." 

 

She wished that she didn't have to lie. 

 

Licking his own lips nervously, Glenn moved a little closer to Katina, falling into step beside her.

 

"Don't worry about it," He told her again. "It'll all be fine."

 

No, Katina thought. It wasn't going to be fine. There was nothing that Glenn could tell her that would make her think otherwise, either.

 

 

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